When the Bass Stopped Whispering

Three-thirty AM smelled like stale coffee and bug spray. The dock boards creaked under my boots as mist curled around my fluorocarbon line, the pre-dawn silence broken only by distant bullfrog croaks. I'd dreamed of this moment since ice-out - smallmouth bass should've been exploding on shad in the channel cuts.

By first light, my jerkbait collected more algae than strikes. 'Should've brought the spinning gear,' I muttered, watching a muskrat slap its tail in disapproval. The rhythm changed at 6:17 AM - not with a strike, but with the eerie cessation of morning birdcall. Water rippled against the boat hull in a pattern no wind could explain.

Three casts later, my topwater frog lure disappeared in a toilet-flush strike that sent my heart into my throat. The rod doubled over as line screamed off the reel, smallmouth cartwheeling through copper-tinted sunlight. When I finally lipped the bronzeback, its gills flared like opera curtains.

As I released the fish, a dozen similar boils erupted across the cove. The lake hadn't gone quiet - it had been holding its breath.